Monday, November 16, 2015

College Students: Freedom of Speech Does Not Include Hate Speech

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Growing up we were told to have manners. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. It's called courtesy. However, as you grow up, you realize that courtesy is something in the world that is in short supply. People are jerks. They say mean things, and they do mean things. Life isn't fair.

"Suck it up, and make life fair through your own hard work," Dad would say.

I tell people that I can't be offended. I don't allow other people to have that kind of control over my emotions. I consider all of these people that go around getting offended by anything and everything of being weak. Suck it up.

Society has tried to make up for the fact that few seem to practice courtesy. We have gone from attempting to have individual manners and courtesy to tippy-toeing around leftist collective imposed political correctness. People are hurt by anything and everything. You are not allowed to disagree with them, or have a less than favorable opinion of their behavior, or mental deviations. The truth has become something that people wish to criminalize, and opinion is not allowed unless you agree with their opinion.

We have coddled the younger generation, plus they've been indoctrinated by tons of leftist propaganda since the first day of school. They've been taught to be sensitive, and careful, and that they are all all-stars who can achieve anything. They are champions for participating, and they are told that competition is not important, just as long as they try.

What we have, now, is a society of weak little weenies who cry if you say or do anything that they think might not be nice. But they use extreme language for those that dare speak their minds. They call it "hate speech," and people who speak in such a way are "haters" and belong to a various assortment of "phobes."

These people don't realize that they are simply tools. They are doing as they've been trained to do. It is a way to silence the opposition, to censor dissent, and force society to do what the liberal left wants it to do. And they are willing to kill our basic freedoms to achieve they goals, calling religious freedoms "discrimination," and proclaiming that "freedom of speech does not include a protection of hate speech."

Get over it. People say unkind things. People will disagree with you. Suck it up, and be more than a sniveling pile of goo.

The infection of political correctness has now reached critical mass with the younger generation. College kids are forcing resignations in the name of political correctness. Everyone is racist, if they don't bow down to #blacklivesmatter, and you are a hater if you don't appreciate and enable the mental illnesses of homosexuality and transexualism. Do you want the government to enforce immigration laws? You're a racist. Appreciate the Constitution? You are a hater, and believe in an oppressive document.

These kids don't even know history, and they sure as hell don't know what true oppression, or hate, is. But they are acting as they've been trained, following the lawlessness of social justice, and the destruction of a civil society.

Here's what's been going on for those of you that haven't noticed...

From Fox News: So-called "safe spaces" -- where students can shield themselves from uncomfortable or dissenting viewpoints -- might be all the rage on college campuses, but they would not have been too popular with the founding fathers, say Constitutional law experts.

"I think the problem is they're trying to use this word 'safe' – which conveys the image of a violent attack – and turning it into safe from ideas and statements we find offensive," said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. "There is no right to be safe from that."

"That is directly contrary to what universities are all about," Volokh told FoxNews.com Friday.

"They want complete control over their personal lives, over their sex lives, over the use of drugs, but they want mommy and daddy dean to please give them a safe place, to protect them from ideas that maybe are insensitive, maybe will make them think." - attorney Alan Dershowitz

The controversy over such zones comes after a string of recent, racially-charged incidents at universities nationwide that -- while different -- share a common denominator: the promotion of a "PC culture" where real or perceived threatening thoughts or ideas should not be tolerated.

From Huffington Post: Nov. 9, 2015: The heads of the University of Missouri System and its flagship campus in Columbia announce they are resigning amid pressure by protesters and others who say they haven't adequately responded to complaints about racial issues, including that minority students had been subjected to slurs. System President Tim Wolfe, whose resignation was effective immediately, said the blame lay with him. Meanwhile, several deans sent a letter to the system's governing board calling for the ouster of the Columbia campus' chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin. Loftin said he will step down at the end of the year and take a position as director of research facility development for the school. The protesters were given a big boost over the weekend when 30 black football players said they wouldn't take part in team activities until Wolfe was gone.

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Nov. 6, 2015: At Yale University, weeks of tension erupted into protests after an Oct. 28 university email warning about racially insensitive Halloween costumes prompted a professor to complain that Yale and other campuses were becoming "places of censure and prohibition." Peter Salovey, the president of Yale, said he was left "deeply troubled" by a meeting Thursday with minority students who said they didn't believe the school was attuned to their needs. Also that day, hundreds of students surrounded Jonathan Holloway, the first black dean of Yale College, outside the main library and demanded to know why he had not communicated with the college community about allegations that a Sigma Alpha Epsilon member said "white girls only" at the door of a party the day before Halloween. The president of the fraternity has denied those allegations. Holloway and Salovey emailed the Yale community Friday acknowledging that more needed to be done.

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Oct. 8, 2015: At UCLA, some students overran Chancellor Gene Block's office while hundreds of others marched on campus, days after some students wore blackface to a Kanye West-themed party thrown by a fraternity and a sorority. The school said it was investigating after photos from the party surfaced on social media and students began expressing outrage. Jerry Kang, vice chancellor for UCLA's Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, told the crowd of students he was heartbroken because "black Bruins' lives matter."

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Sept. 17, 2015: A former University of Mississippi student accused of hanging a noose around a statue of the school's first black student last year was sentenced to six months in prison. The student pleaded guilty to using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and school employees by helping hang the noose and drape an old Georgia state flag that incorporated a Confederate battle emblem on the statue of James Meredith. Federal prosecutors say two other students took part, and one of them was also charged. The men's fraternity chapter was shuttered after the incident.

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April 1, 2015: After a month of protests, University of Maryland at College Park President Wallace Loh declared that a student's racist and sexist 2014 email to fraternity brothers was "hateful and reprehensible," but was constitutionally protected speech and didn't violate school policies. On March 24, a number of students spoke out at a forum, expressing frustration with fraternity culture and unhappiness with the school's response. The student who sent the email was suspended from Kappa Sigma fraternity and left campus for the semester.

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March 7, 2015: A video was posted online of fraternity members singing a racist song on a bus went viral, leading to widespread condemnation and protests at the University of Oklahoma. School President David Boren declared, "Real sooners are not racist," and the school's football team showed its disapproval of racist chant, with Coach Bob Stoops leading silent protests at Owen Field and players wearing black during the team's normal practice time. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was swiftly banned from campus, two members were expelled and more than two dozen others were disciplined over the incident.

From the New York Times: Instances of racism and bigotry have ignited protests at colleges across the United States, and social media has amplified students’ messages far beyond campus.

Frat brothers chanting racial epithets. People in blackface at "gangsta"-themed parties. A noose hung around a campus statue of a former black student.

U.S. colleges and universities are more diverse than ever, and yet episodes like these happen with alarming regularity. The current unrest at the University of Missouri, whose president and chancellor resigned Monday amid protests over the school's handling of racism on campus, is just the latest and most high-profile in a recent string of racially charged incidents.

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The lesson? Yes, people can be assholes. Quit crying. Change the culture through example, turn in the worst cases to your school officials, but this overly exaggerated reaction is playing into the hands of the political people that want you to react in such a way. Divide and conquer, and you, the school campus protesters, are acting like tools, doing exactly what they want you to do.

Suck it up, and be an individual. Think about it.

By the way, the Constitution enumerating freedom of speech was specifically designed to protect political speech and religious speech, the two kinds of speech being targeted by these small-minded college kids who are too busy letting what other people say and do control their emotions, rather than standing above it all.

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